Stunning info. Its like a game alive going beyond the ultimate that was DAGGERFALL in its mind staggering humongousness. The npcs sound very believable and full of multiple purposes creating a very flexible dangerous realism on treating them with respect aswell as those they know.

The snowfall is gonna be a real treat to see in action as it covers the terrain in different degrees. I wonder if it will melt and if it can be manipulated by magic with the alteration school so one can shoot a snowball as soft as feathers at a child or hard as fossilised ice at a monster.

Random encounters sound wonderful with all the potential they have. Would be cool if that wooly mammouth surrounded by a pack of wolves becomes ones ally if the player decided to help it or heal it afterwards.

Thanks for the awe inspiring glimpse of artistic magnificence that is SKYRIM at the hands of the CREATION ENGINE 😀

While the screenshot certainly whet’s the appetite, what really impressed me was the dynamic random encounters; improved NPC AI; and especially the relaxation on ‘essential NPCs’. One thing that bothered me with both Morrowind and Oblivion is despite the fact it’s an open world, after a period of time, you’ve done everything there ever was to do and that was it. From then on you had to search far and wide for some decent mods that would (hopefully) extend re-playability. While mods are good and the ability to mod is even better, a lot of people still don’t want to enter the wonderful world of mods and prefer developer content over community content. After all, compare mods between Morrowind and Oblivion. The former consisted of incredible amounts of item and personalizing mods, but there were fundamentally a lot more ‘story’ mods. Oblivion was exactly the opposite. Item mods and personalization mods (skins, races, clothes, armour, weapons, etc.) dominate the Oblivion modding community. While Morrowind ended up the same way, ‘story’ mods were more common at the outset. (These comparisons do not include rebalancing mods, interface mods, or expansions on landscape, magicka, etc. – these types of mods will crop up regardless of what game the mod is for).

While I enjoyed Daggerfall’s random dungeons, they did become tedious and boring after a short while. It got to the point when you got the runaway atronach quest from the local mage’s guild, you just groaned to yourself knowing you’d have to delve into another of those random dungeons. LOL. So I’m really looking forward to the randomization discussed in this article.

What *wasn’t* discussed in this article is something I’m really interested in knowing about – levelled lists. These things are not a happy medium in most regards. For example, you’re level 15 (or whatever), and in order to compensate, the roadside bandit using you as a pincushion for his arrows mysteriously was able to afford or otherwise acquire glass and elven armour. O_o These are bandits, not a mercenary company… how did this happen – and what’s more *all* bandits in the game are equally outfitted. O_O Is there some kind of guild that I wasn’t aware of that mysteriously came into a *lot* of money/resources/blacksmiths?

Same kind of thinking for levelled monsters. Rats became wolves became timberwolves became boars became bears, etc. et al. Huh? I walk by a spot in the woods and meet a rat. A level or so later, in that same spot, a wolf, and so on. I can only assume that the rats moved out after you killed one and the wolves moved in until, eventually, only the biggest, baddest creature was willing to stay and occupy the area.

So, I’m very interested in the random encounters will be handled. So far it sounds good but…

Very very interesting. I have a feeling these random encounters will ensure even more hundreds of hours of gameplay. I also went and checked out some of the demo’s over at Havok’s website. Havok Behavior looks pretty amazing. Can’t wait to see Skyrim in action!

Wow. Just wow…. I never thought TES would be able to pull of graphics and AI like this. The older engines always used so much memory with NPCs and distant land that you couldn’t push them too much (in the construction set). I’m really looking forward to some more screenshots and information.

For the record I have a folder where all Skyrim related images go that refreshes my desktop every 30 minutes 😀

How can I start getting into game development at home? Where can I buy software that I can use to start developing a game? I really want to be able to create a game that I can call my own and be happy to be playing it. I can not wait till Skyrim comes out so that I may be inspired even more to be a video game designer.

Nice read, one thing it didn’t answer though, is there still going to be a loading screen between almost every transition from interior to exterior and vice-versa? ]

Hopefully if there are they will have random quotes of wisdom similar to Galahaut’s Atmospheric Loading Screens mod but with a Elder Scrolls lore angle to it but real world quotes would be just as mentally nutritious 😀 Interesting how many times when using Galahaut’s mod in OBLIVION it always says a random quote for what is going on in my life like a guiding hand of commonsense instead of the foolishness of a passing impulsive thought which knocks at my minds door mouthing silently, “Let me in. Let me in.” .